The Return Of Nuclear Power !?!

[Ross365]

After decades when nuclear power has been in the dog-house, just about every country in the world is now looking at nuclear to help reduce CO2 emissions. Could be a boom industry for those with welding skills.

Of course, we Brits led the world in nuclear power in the 1960's, but the last British designed reactor was finished in the mid-1980's. Then after a gap of about 40 years, our government decided we need more nuclear, but has gone for a French designed station ('Hinkley C' in Sommerset), currently under constructed.

Mostly though, interest seems to be in "small modular reactors" (SMR); small stations which could be made in factories and then transported to be assembled on sight. In the UK, Rolls Royce are pushing a pressurised water design and another UK company is pushing a design using molten salts as coolant. There are also reports that the UK government thinks the UK now knows how to build a fusion reactor!!!

In the USA this week, Bill Gates (he of Microsoft) led a proposal for a design using liquid sodium coolant, as use in the experimental UK station at Dounreay some decades ago.

Anyone with any insider info???

 

[My Old Landy]

After decades when nuclear power has been in the dog-house, just about every country in the world is now looking at nuclear to help reduce CO2 emissions. Could be a boom industry for those with welding skills.

Of course, we Brits led the world in nuclear power in the 1960's, but the last British designed reactor was finished in the mid-1980's. Then after a gap of about 40 years, our government decided we need more nuclear, but has gone for a French designed station ('Hinkley C' in Sommerset), currently under constructed.

Mostly though, interest seems to be in "small modular reactors" (SMR); small stations which could be made in factories and then transported to be assembled on sight. In the UK, Rolls Royce are pushing a pressurised water design and another UK company is pushing a design using molten salts as coolant. There are also reports that the UK government thinks the UK now knows how to build a fusion reactor!!!

In the USA this week, Bill Gates (he of Microsoft) led a proposal for a design using liquid sodium coolant, as use in the experimental UK station at Dounreay some decades ago.

Anyone with any insider info???

ITER in the south of France is where the international team are building a large scale fusion reactor. https://www.iter.org/
The JET system at Culham (Joint European Torus) has run but not for sustained periods, it is just a test bed.
There are other companies trying to develop small scale fusion reactors but have so far failed to get anything sustainable.
I have no idea about the SMR's though.

 

[Agroshield]

You might know of him already, but there is a guy on YouTube, Illinois energy prof who has some very interesting stuff on this subject.

 

[northwest]

My missus was watching the documentary the other day about Hinkley C and how much longer (10 years IIRC) it is going to take before it is finished. She was just appalled at the amount of money and the total lack of progress.

 

[addjunkie]

My missus was watching the documentary the other day about Hinkley C and how much longer (10 years IIRC) it is going to take before it is finished. She was just appalled at the amount of money and the total lack of progress.

Sounds a bit like the new rail ways too.

 

[Mr Fro]

One of my lecturers is some head honcho in nuclear stuff. I thought I knew some bright people but this guy is next level intelligent.

Any road, he was saying a while back that the controlling element of new UK nuclear is China.

To say he is concerned about the state of UK nuclear is an understatement.

 

[Sam0117]

@Ross365 i don’t know about nuclear power but the sodium coolant your on about I have worked with, a uk company I used to work for uses NaK, it was 70% potassium and 30% sodium, very good for cooling and if used right very efficient, only issue is very dangerous stuff, as I’m sure you can imagine.

 

[northwest]

To say he is concerned about the state of UK nuclear is an understatement.

It is this frightens me. When really knowledgeable people are concerned I tend to carp myself.

 

[frank horton]

shame we can't go/do it alone....
all the money wasted on HS2 n the PM's flat.....
did I miss anything else....?

 

[Pilgrim22]

To say he is concerned about the state of UK nuclear is an understatement.

I spoke to a chap about 6 years ago who was an officer in Civil Nuclear Constabulary. he told me then that it was the only area in British policing that was expanding. There number had more than doubled in the previous couple of years.

 

[merryman]

The obvious place to put a Nuclear power station is in London, they could run a district heating system from the waste heat and much of the demand is there due to the big servers needing to be close to the City, so few transmission losses. They never do build one anywhere close to London though, I wonder why?

 

[Mr Fro]

The obvious place to put a Nuclear power station is in London, they could run a district heating system from the waste heat and much of the demand is there due to the big servers needing to be close to the City, so few transmission losses. They never do build one anywhere close to London though, I wonder why?

At least they'd have something to blame the mutants on.

 

[pedrobedro]

The obvious place to put a Nuclear power station is in London, they could run a district heating system from the waste heat and much of the demand is there due to the big servers needing to be close to the City, so few transmission losses. They never do build one anywhere close to London though, I wonder why?

Who'd want to buy a million pound house next to a reactor ?

 

[piman]

Hello Northwest,

it is expensive to build that is obvious, and the work scope is very big. Even just the cooling water intakes are a major job.
What is not so obvious and the often touted in the media is that we don't need it, just build wind farms. Hinkley is a tad over 3 Gigawatts capacity, it would need about 7.5 Gigawatts of wind capacity to match it due to the availability facator of offshore wind. Not only that wind is uncontrollable and has other technical defficiences so there is a limit to how much can be connected to the grid. And their life is half that at least of conventional power stations.
Renewables are very much over hyped and cannot do what people expect them to do.

Nuclear is Hobson's choice if we really want to reduce CO2 from emissions especially with the poorly thought out light transport and heating being added to grid demand. That alone means there is no chance of building sufficient nuclear generators in the time frame, even with the faster build of small modular reactors.

Alec

 

[Matchless]

Who'd want to buy a million pound house next to a reactor ?

You won't get much for that in London!

 

[Migmac]

I’ll ask my BiL, he works in the nuclear industry

 

[Kayos]

We need a balanced approach to power, I however am not qualified to decide what that balance is

This is an interesting website, cant vouch for accuracy but ive been using it for a few years and watched coal basically drop to zero over that time

G. B. National Grid status

gridwatch.templar.co.uk

 

[Seadog]

Anyone with any insider info???

@toddy might know more.

 

[Seadog]

There number had more than doubled in the previous couple of years.

So there are two of them now?

 

[8ob]

Is there much choice? Wind is not 100% reliable and wont meet the needs on a calm day, gas,oil and coal are out of the equation. Fusion looks promising but until proven fission will have to fill in, not sure if a nuclear plant can be converted to fusion or whether the whole thing is a different kettle of fish.

Bob